An Internet Tutorial

by Jonathan Leger
jleger@cp-tel.net


CHATPER III : Cross Country In 7 Minutes Flat
All about elctronic mail (e-mail).


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I at one time had an interest in a girl who lived in Virginia. At the time I was living in Louisiana. Needless to say, phone bills could be enormous if I'd let them (and sometimes they were!) E-mail, however, was cheap, and although I knew that it was faster than sending a letter via U.S. Mail, I didn't realize how MUCH faster until I checked the delivery time on an e-mail.

You see, when you send an e-mail, the time that you sent it is "stamped" onto the e-mail (much in the same way as a letter is postmarked).

As it turned out, my friend in Virginia had sent me an e-mail not 7 minutes before it was received by my ISP! Now, to get the full impact of the power and speed of this 7 minute letter, let's think about how long it takes in the U.S. Mail.

First, you hand-write the letter (which for me takes 3-5 times as long as typing it, as I type 100+ wpm and can only write in the range of 20 wpm).

Next, you drop the letter in the mail-box (hopefully BEFORE the mail-carrier has come). The mail-carrier comes and picks up the letter, taking it back to the Post Office.

At the Post Office, your letter is sorted by zip code and other things, and is eventually picked up by a mail truck which carts it off to the proper Post Office for wherever you were mailing the letter.

At that Post Office, your letter is sorted and filed with other letters to find out which carrier's route it is in. That
carrier then takes your letter to its destination.

When sending a letter to Virginia, this process takes about 3 days. Assuming that the recipient of your letter writes back that day and drops it in the mail-box to picked up the next day, you will receive a reply to your letter in about 7 days.

E-mail works much the same way as the U.S. Postal service. Your letter is routed to where it needs to go and eventually ends up in the "mail-box" of the recepient. The only difference is that there are no humans involved, which is why that letter can arrive in *7 minutes* rather than 7 days!

Aren't computers wonderful?

E-mail is probably the single-most powerful and useful tool of the internet, in my opinion even more powerful than the world wide web, because e-mail has the ability to be much more personal than the web can be.

Enough of the introductions to e-mail, though. There are a few things that I've seen that most people who are new to e-mail usually don't know how to do, or don't understand.

File Attachments

Your kid brother's oldest son has just graduated from high school. He lives in Minnosota, and you live in Oklahoma. Sure, it's an important occasion, but not really important enough for you to take a trip to visit.

But still, it is your kid brother's oldest son, and you do care about him very much, so you want to do something. 'What does a kid out of high school usually need?' you ask yourself. 'What else,' comes the obvious reply, 'money!'

So you break out the pen and paper and write him a nice letter about how sucessful you know he'll be in college, etc., and then you break out the check book and write him out a generouscontribution to his Party-All-Summer fund.

You use a paper-clip to attach the check to the letter, and you stuff them both into an envelope: destination, Minnosota.

If you think of the letter that you wrote as the e-mail, then the check is the file attachment. A file attachment is simply a file that you have on your computer that you send along with your e-mail to whoever it is going to.

A file attachment can be a picture of your 3-year old daughter that you scanned in with your scanner, it can be a resume that you're e-mailing to a potential employer, or it can be a program that you found on the web. There isn't any file that you have on your computer that you can't send via e-mail to someone else.

To 'attach' a file to your e-mail, all you have to do is this:

For Microsoft Outlook Express or Netscape Messenger:

  1. Compose a new message.
  2. Click on the paper-clip button.
  3. Find the file that you're wanting to attach.
  4. Write your letter and hit the 'Send' button.

Voila! You've attached a file.

Keeping Pictures And Stuff That You Find On The Web

You grew up in Colorado. Your dad was a real outdoorsman, and loved to take the family to the Cedar Point Recreation Area, which had an incredible view of Lake Buchanan. Your sister has moved with her husband to the Mesa area around phoenix, Arizona, and she really misses going to the Lake each spring. You feel bad for her, and so to give her some memories of the family outings, you want to send her a great picture of the lake that you found on the web.

First of all, how do you save the picture to your computer, and secondly, how do you send it to your sister?

To answer the first question:

You can save any picture on any web site by moving your mouse pointer over the picture that you want to save and clicking the right mouse button. Choose one of the following from the menu that comes up (this is for Windows 95/98 only):

Then move to the directory that you want to save your picture, and hit 'Save'. Remember where you put it so that you'll know where to find it when you attach it, which is what I'll go into next.

To send the picture:

  1. Get into your e-mail program and create a new message.
  2. Address it and give it a subject, etc., then click the paper clip picture.
  3. Navigate to the directory where you saved the picture, and select it. Then hit 'Open'.
  4. Click the 'send' button.

Voila! Tis done.

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How to Send the Same Mail to Many People

What can you say, you're a socialable person. You have a lot of friends that you e-mail all the time. You found this great info on this awesome web site and you want them all to read it, so you sit down and send them each an e-mail, one by one. All 37 of them.

Ouch! That could take forever. There are easier ways, though! You can create a mailing list.

Microsoft Outlook Express

If you use MS Outlook Express, you can follow these instructions for creating a mailing list. Note that these instructions are know to be valid for the version that comes with Internet Explorer 4.0. However, the concepts should work for most other versions.

Once you're in Outlook Express, click the 'New Group' button. This will create a new mailing list. Give the mailing list a name by filing in the 'Group Name' field. For example, you could call it 'My Friends' or 'My Mailing List', whatever.

If you've already got the people you're wanting to put on your mailing list in your address book, you can click on 'Select Members'.

You will then be shown a list of the people in your address book. Click on the first person you want to add to the mailing list, and then click the 'Select' button. Do this for each person you wish to add to your mailing list. When you're done, click 'OK'.

If you don't already have anyone in your address book, you'll need to add them. Do this by clicking the 'New Contact' button and filling out the information that it asks for and then click 'OK'. Anyone you add in this manner will automatically be added to your mailing list, so you wont need to go in and 'Select' them.

If you want to describe your mailing list, fill in the 'Notes' box with your description. When you're done, click 'OK'.

To send a message to your mailing list, first create a the message using YOUR e-mail address in the 'To:' field. Click on the picture to the left of the 'Bcc:' field (which is under the 'To:' field). The picture looks like a rolodex card.

Find your mailing list in the list of names and addresses that comes up when you click the picture. Double click the name of your mailing list. You will see that it now appears in the box to the right called 'Bcc:'. Click 'OK'.

Now send your message. Tada! You've sent your e-mail to your mailing list.

Netscape Messenger

Notice that these instructions are valid for Netscape Messenger version 4.06. The priciples should work for any version of Netscape, though.

Once you're in Netscape Messenger, click the 'Communicator' menu and select 'Address Book'. Click the 'New List' button toward the top.

Now give your list a name by filling in the 'List Name' field. You can call it anything you want, 'My Friends' or 'My Mailing List' or whatever.

Then, one by one, type the e-mail addresses into the lines provided at the bottom, pressing 'Enter' after each e-mail address. When you're done, click 'OK'.

For each person in the list, if they are not already in your address book, you will be asked if you would like to add them to your address book. Respond 'Yes' for each person.

Now create a new message. Pur YOUR e-mail address in the 'To:' field. Then click the 'Address Book' picture toward the top of the window.

Find the name of your mailing list in list provided (it will be in alphabetical order). Click on that name once, and then click the 'Bcc:' button below the list. Click 'OK'.

Now write your message and send it. Tada! You've sent your message to everyone on your mailing list.

CC and BCC -- What's That?

In creating your mailing list, you sent your message to yourself and put your mailing list into the 'Bcc:' field. Why would you send the message to yourself, and what does 'Bcc' mean?

Have you ever gotten a message that had somebody elses e-mail address in the 'To:' field? You were receiving mail from a mailing list.

Have you ever gotten a message from a person that had a whole bunch of e-mail addresses at the top of the message? That person was sending his message to his mailing list.

You send the message to yourself to avoid having just anybody's e-mail address in the 'To:' field. You want YOUR address there so that everyone will know that it is your mailing list that isreceiving the message.

'Bcc:' stands for Blind Carbon Copy. If you've ever gotten a message that had tons of e-mail addresses at the top that you had to scroll down past to read the actual message, then you know how annoying this can be.

The e-mail addresses in the 'Bcc:' field are hidden to the person who receives the e-mail. That way they don't have to scroll past ten-gillion e-mail addresses to read the message.'Cc:' stands for Carbon Copy. It is exactly like 'Bcc:' except that the e-mail addresses in the 'Cc:' field CAN be seen, so you don't want to put your list of e-mail addresses into the Cc:' field.

Spam--Not Just A Breakfast Food Anymore!

Now, I know what you're thinking, 'Who eats spam for breakfast?' You do. That is, you will once you've had e-mail for any period of time at all.

'Spam', as the term was coined many moons ago, is the equivalent of electronic junk mail. Once people get a hold of your e-mail address, whether it's by handing it out at websites that don't promise not to sell your e-mail address, or whether you posted a message to somebody's guestbook, whatever, some fools will decide that they will bombard you with advertisements. Now, don't get excited, it's not that bad if you're a regular internet user. Those of us who operate businesses online, however, get TONS of junk-mail simply because we're involved in a lot of projects where our e-mail address gets passed around.

That's why it's sometimes a good idea to get a junk-mail address (such as one from Hotmail, www.hotmail.com). Any time you are required to give your e-mail address at a website, just give them your junk-mail address until you feel certain you will not receive junk mail from them, and then have them change it to your real address.

People who read and post to newsgroups tend to get 'spammed', as the saying goes, a lot because their e-mail address is readily available. As such, newsgroup people are particular sensitive to spam.

People who send spam are generally refered to as 'spammers' (as well as many other, unrepeatable, things...)

(For more information about Newsgroups, see chapter IV, The Old Fashioned Way: Newsgroups--What They Are and Why They Thrive)

E-mail Is Beautiful

Were you aware of the fact that writing letters had been a fading practice in the United States until e-mail came along? E-mail, yes, computers, actually has brought about a return to communication through writing (though I'm sure the U.S. Postal Service is less than thrilled about it).

I find this fascinating. In such a high-tech society, where all manner of traditional ANYTHING is heading out the door, the technological capabilities of the internet has actually brought about a RETURN to one of those traditions--the letter.

So write to your friends who have e-mail. Encourage those who don't have e-mail, but who own a computer, to either get online or to get a free e-mail account like Juno, which will send your friend the software to check his e-mail for free! It's available in most major areas of the United States.

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Click here to get it!

My internet tutorial is an excellent start for learning your way around the internet. But, to really become a cyber-pro, you'll want to get The Internet For Dummies. I highly recommend it. Here's what others are saying about it:

A reader from Ontario. Canada , March 30, 1999
"Interesting. Informative. Entertaining. Educational. In my view, it should be required reading for every tyro cybernaut. Great job."

A reader from U.S. , March 6, 1999
"I think this book is fantastic! I like things explained in plain English, and it's funny too. I got started and online the first day."

The Internet For Dummies. Click here to get it now!


Comments or suggestions about this chapter? Please send them to me at jleger@cp-tel.net.